Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Family Law Procedure

What is the Florida long-arm statute? This is a rule that specifies under what conditions a non-resident of Florida can be served with a lawsuit and a court can exercise personal jurisdiction. In a family law proceeding, the long-arm statute comes into play when. for example, a spouse moves to Florida and tries to divorce a spouse living outside of Florida. This statute was an issue in the case Murphy v. Murphy, 1D20-1117 (Fla. 1st DCA July 6, 2022).

In 2019, the former wife in this case tried to have her divorce decree from Hawaii registered and enforced in Florida. She alleged in her petition that the former husband previously owned property in Florida, that he resided in Florida for most of the last ten to eleven years, and that although he recently left the state, “his continued, substantial and recent residency in the state provide a basis for personal jurisdiction over him.” The former husband filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction after he was served in North Carolina.

He alleged that he last lived in Florida from July 2017 to February 2019 as a result of his military service, that he lived in Florida previously between 2010 and 2012, and that he owned property in Florida for four months in 2017. He claimed North Carolina residency, and his sworn statements indicated he did not live in Florida for approximately seven months before the former wife filed her petition. The trial court held a hearing and denied the former husband’s motion to dismiss. It held that it had to rely on the four corners of the complaint and to construe the former wife’s allegations in the light most favorable to her. Based on this, the court found the former wife adequately pled for a basis to exercise personal jurisdiction over the former husband. The former husband appealed.

The appellate court began by noting “To be sure, a plaintiff does not need to plead much in the way of jurisdictional facts. The former wife, for example, did not have to plead any more than language tracking the long-arm statute to authorize issuance of process for service on the former husband in North Carolina.” The court also noted “The only readily apparent jurisdictional allegations that the former wife made in her petition addressed the length of time the former husband had lived in Florida before he left, the properties he used to own in Florida, and the possibility that he may still own property in Florida. She did not specify a provision in the long-arm statute on which she sought to rely, [. . .]”.

The court went on to analyze the parts of the Florida long arm statute it was conceivable that the former wife might have relied upon. It found that none of the section of the long arm statute were applicable to the former wife’s allegations. Specifically with regard to the part of the statute referencing a proceeding for divorce, alimony or child support, the court reasoned that the former wife’s petition for enforcement fell outside of this provision. With regard to the allegation that the former husband participated in substantial and continuing activities in Florida, the court rejected this argument, reasoning: “If the Legislature had intended to allow prior conduct (i.e., activity that started and ended in the past) to support jurisdiction over a nonresident, it would have used a past tense of the being verb (i.e., ‘was engaged’) or a perfect tense (i.e., ‘has engaged’ or ‘had engaged’). It did not. Then again, why would it? General jurisdiction is premised on a non-resident defendant in essence still being ‘present’ in the state now.”

The appellate court reasoned: “Simply put, unlike the type of contact required for specific jurisdiction, the contacts in support of general jurisdiction, by definition, cannot be exclusively in the past. The former wife had to establish not only the former husband’s “extensive and pervasive” contacts, but also the fact that he currently maintained those contacts with Florida at the time she filed suit. This, she failed to do.” The court concluded: “Once the former husband contested the former wife’s jurisdictional allegations with his sworn statement denying that he owned property in Florida currently, the burden shifted to the former wife ‘to prove by affidavit the basis upon which jurisdiction may be obtained.’ [. . .] The former wife did not submit any affidavits or other sworn statement, so she did not meet her burden of production. The only evidence before the court was the former husband’s sworn motion, leaving unrefuted the former husband’s statements that he had no present contacts with Florida. The trial court should have disposed of the former husband’s motion based on the undisputed fact that he had no presence in the state at the time the former wife filed suit. [. . .] The trial court has no authority to exercise jurisdiction over the former husband, and the motion to dismiss must be granted.”

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